mzalendo.com , a Kenyan Parliamentary watchdog site , has put up this list. Similar watchdoggery activities should be started in Ethiopia.
We have put together a list capturing the names of MPs who are refusing to pay taxes and where possible their public statements, this is for posterity reasons…since we know how kigeugeu our politicians can be.
Source :http://www.mzalendo.com/2011/06/28/list-of-kenyan-mps-who-are-refusing-to-pay-taxes/The 70-year-old is a broadcasting phenomenon - the son of a Methodist minister who became a household name on both sides of the Atlantic, a multi-millionaire and a friend of the great and the good.
After studying at Cambridge University, he came to television in the early 1960s, presenting the mould-breaking BBC satirical show That Was the Week That Was.
With his mocking delivery and use of headline language, he became a national figure and before long he found fame in the US, commuting regularly across the Atlantic.
His catchphrase, "hello, good evening and welcome", was to become much-mimicked.
Trial by TV
Sir David mixed pure entertainment - with shows like The Frost Report, which brought together Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett - with serious political interviews with the likes of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
In 1969, he also introduced the much-criticised trial by television, notably of Emil Savundra - head of a cut-price car insurance company which swindled thousands of motorists.
The presenter was visibly angry at Savundra's evasions.
 Sir David was played by Michael Sheen, right, in Frost/Nixon |
In 1977, he used the format to take US President Richard Nixon to task over the Watergate political scandal.
In the interviews, watched by 45 million people, Nixon ultimately admitted his part in the scandal which led to his resignation two years earlier.
The story of their verbal battle was brought to a new generation with the 2008 release of Frost/Nixon - a film based on those interviews, starring Michael Sheen as the British contender and an Oscar-nominated Frank Langella as the disgraced politician.
David Parradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, though the family later moved to Suffolk.
After a grammar school education, he went to Cambridge, where he was editor of student publication Granta and active in the Footlights theatre company.
He presented three programmes on ITV before That Was the Week that Was.
Ali interview
The list of Sir David's television programmes is a long one - The Frost Programme, Frost on Friday, A Degree of Frost, Not So Much A Programme, More a Way of Life to name but a few.
There was also the Frost Over series. Frost Over England in 1967 won an award at Montreux. Others were about America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
 That Was The Week That Was began in 1962 |
The Frost Programme was the first current affairs programme to use a participating audience.
A variety of interview-based programmes followed. Recorded primarily in the UK and America, they were broadcast all over the world.
Interviewees from the world of showbiz included The Beatles, Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams and Noel Coward.
Prince Charles was interviewed on the eve of his investiture as Prince of Wales.
Muhammad Ali was interviewed in New York and later in Zaire.
Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Heenan came into his studio and US political activist Abbie Hoffman and his Youth International party, aka the "Yippies", took over during a live show.
Sir David was a joint founder of London Weekend Television and one of the famous five presenters-cum-shareholders behind breakfast television station TV-am, which launched in 1983.
His Frost on Sunday programme began on the station in 1984, running until 1992.
 Sir David married his wife, Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, in 1983 |
In 1993, he began presenting Breakfast with Frost on the BBC - his first regular weekly show for the corporation since That Was The Week That Was.
His new show - also on a Sunday morning - ran for 500 editions, ending in May 2005.
Since 2006, Sir David has presented weekly current affairs programme Frost All Over The World on the Al Jazeera English Channel.
Recent interviewees have included Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former US Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Sir David has written a number of books, produced eight films and has received many major TV awards, in the UK and internationally.
In the early 1980s, he was briefly married to Peter Sellers' widow, Lynne Frederick. In 1983, he married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, a daughter of the Duke of Norfolk.
Thousands of Ethiopians and some foreigners head to two Churches in Addis Abeba looking for religious healings from an Orthodox Priest/Exorcist Girma Wondimu. On Saturday and Sunday to St. Stephen Church, Meskel Square and on Tuesday and Wednesday to St. Michael Church, in Merkato, Addis Abeba. Thousands of Ethiopians and foreigners have given testimonies of healing and many have been open-mouthed by the miracles they have witnessed. Almost all types of ailments are healed through ‘Faith Healing’. This is one of the talking points in the religiously strong Addis Abeba today. The Priest regularly gives religious teachings and healing through baptismal and exorcism in the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian ways. I have had the opportunity to speak to him.
The excerpt follows,
Tell me about yourself please?
Priest/Exorcist Girma: I was born in 1951 (Ethiopian Calendar) in Bale, Ethiopia. In 1962(Eth.Calander) , I was ordained a deacon by Abune Mekarios at the St. Michael Church, in Bale Goba . I served as a deacon for 15 years in different parishes in Bale, Ethiopia. Then I completed preaching and prayer courses. Recently I was given additional trainings on prayers by religious fathers. They strengthened me. By taking the Holy Eucharist (Communion) often, I also got the spiritual gift from God that enables me identify the spirit. When teaching the Gospel to the people attending worship, I was then able to identify where the spirits were amongst worshipers. When you take the Holy Communion, you see what Jesus Christ had seen. You do what Jesus Christ did. Because He said in the Gospel of John 14:12 “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” In this world where betrayal is much, God is out of the philosophy; to quieten the material world’s wealth and wisdom, and reveal the secret; he showed/gave me the opportunity through His gift. So now I can say I have a Doctorate Degree of 35 years of investigation and research on spirits. And in all those years, I had served in Bale Goba, Zeway, Butajira (many Pentecostals and Muslims have been converted to Christianity),Meki,Jima,Teppi,Yirga Cheffe, Sidamo, Harar, Somali region, Neeus Tabia Ketema, Sudan, I have been in Addis Abeba for the past good years and will soon be heading to Wello, Haik, and others.
What did it include, prayers only or did it include healing and other services as I watched in the series of the Video CDs of the Faith Healings you have released?
Priest/Exorcist Girma : What you saw in the Video CDs is just a tip of it. Through my Service, all kinds of healing, safety and deliverance works are done. I spent all the 35 years in this Service. Out of the 35 years, I spent nine of them exiled in Sudan.
Do you have a family?
Priest/Exorcist Girma : I am married and have three children. I live with my family now.
Doing these time and space taking Faith Healing Services and being over crowded with such a large mass, Won’t this affect your private and family life?
Priest/Exorcist Girma : My private life is only for prayer. The rest would all be fulfilled by the Will of God. After my Faith Healing programs, I spend my time in prayers and taking the Holy Communion frequently, because the way to defend devil is when you have Lord inside you, so it is by taking the Holy Communion that the devil is won and you get strengthened. Because He said “I am the bread of life.’’
Can you list me the total number of healings and their types?
Priest/Exorcist Girma: They are so many . Because it is quite expensive to have the blank CDs we use for recording the films on, we only do recordings sometimes and only few of the miracles selected. Hundreds of people are healed every day. For instance in Somali region, Ethiopia, we used to heal a bunch of 20 to 40 people at a time. So it is difficult to put it in figures but you can say around a million. You can say almost half of the 80 million of our population has been affected by demons. You can say after the revolution (1974), Habessha has become devil.
There were many types of cures ;some whose tongues was inside their necks were healed , crippled, disabled, deaf and some who were in coma were also healed, scientists were also cured, infertile gave birth , Pentecostal spirits were also healed . Many Europeans and Americans have been healed here too. Some of them are in high positions in their own countries. Their demons are easy to exorcise because it is not worshiped unlike ours.
I know that most priests in the old days used to have the gift of Faith Healing. Especially those that were before the coming of modern schooling were able to heal. Then, those who have abused their religious education for their own and devil’s benefits have popped up, who are wrongly named, Debteras (evil doers).
To those of my fellows in my generation who believe in rationality and logic such cures and miracles are unacceptable, some would even laugh when told about the miracles. What is your message for these people?
Priest/Exorcist Girma: These people are of four types: those that have totally denied God and are possessed by demon, second are relatives of the devil (witches, shamans, evil eyes and son ), third those affected by the spirit of philosophy (these is the modern Satan, say as in the case of Marxist and similar laws), fourth are those who succeed the place of devil by having a behaviour of discriminating, hate, and love of riches . The last or the fifth group are Christians. The four believe in materials. They believe in philosophies and when they see miracles they happen to be scared or at other times continue with their denials.
Such services of “Faith Healing’’ in our Church are increasing. I have seen many cases in Addis Abeba in places like Piassa, Ferensayee and so on. Some were proved wrong. How do you see that?
Priest/Exorcist Girma: Gifts of God's generosity are different. As long as one can heal, opposes the devil, and the rules and regulations of the Church are respected, I wouldn’t have anything against it. I believe the gift is only from God.
Did you have bad experiences?
Priest/Exorcist Girma: I was labelled by some laity as a non Christian and was even unable to find a place to sleep for some time. Some had also said that I don’t eat food at all. When I said that my time to break my fast has reached, an elderly lady whose children have been healed once said to me “do you also eat?” I also heard that some people accused me of being a magician, using a Sudanese witchcraft. Those who have been doing this were the types of people I sectioned into four above . One of the saddening things is that priests that knew me very well also failed to testify about me due to jealousy and bad intentions. Some with a rank of Pope, whom I had known in person, had also sent out a rumour, stating that I had a Sudanese witchcraft to do all these healings and this, had stereotyped many worshipers. This shows that the spirits of jealousy and badness that were in there during Genesis had not yet left the Church. There were also intimidations, breaking of my water pipe, protests and so on. But this is all improving now. Worshipers have known the truth now.
They say treasury gifts can spoil …do u take gifts?
Priest/Exorcist Girma: For all these services, nobody pays. It is all free. And there is no precondition to be healed all human beings of all religions, race or identity are allowed to come for healing. They get all the services for free.
So how do you live? Any source of income?
Priest/Exorcist Girma: From the sale of the Video CDs. The CDs show some of the live recorded miraculous ‘Faith Healing’ programs and preaching.
Do you have message for Ethiopians? We Ethiopians are suffering and agonized both in Ethiopia or while in exile. Our problems seem to be endless. Though we were one of the grandest, now we are the helpless.
Priest/Exorcist Girma : Very good. We are in this alarming image for one thing because our ‘Ethiopianess’ has gone out of us. Secondly, our religious direction has been contaminated by the communist thinking. Thirdly, a cursing spirit has entered us and our leaders have built the generation repeating the ‘Destroy it!’’ slogan.There was this culture that promoted the destruction of our past history, the Church, the monuments, and the heroes who protected the country. I am not a politician but I think a child that grew up with those slogans of ‘destroy it’ couldn’t be able to have love for the Country and values and respect for a religion. So we are harvesting a generation that grew up with the ‘destroy it’ slogan/word. That is why whatever we work and our fruits are destroyed, we are exiled and there is destruction there too, here we are and it is destroyed too, it is all destruction. Why? Because what we sow was curse, so we reap curse too. Ethical morality has been broken by Marxist thinking too. Sixty thousand Ethiopians in the times of the Revolution were always marching on Sundays saying “destroy it”, they used to eat meat on Wednesday and Friday that was a time where there was extreme exaltation and indulgence .When their slogan was made a reality by God, it is destruction again. The other thing is that , “going 40 years forward and 40 years backward’’ has become one of the natures of the Ethiopian history.
What is the solution?
Priest/Exorcist Girma : We have to return backward meaning to prayers, ethical education, the religious martyrdom of our fathers, firmness in belief, ceasing lying, and fearing God. Ethiopians have to begin a life of sainthood/sanctification. Sanctified people won’t starve, go to war, migrate, because God is the worrier under the protection of Angeles, they will be victorious. We aren’t sanctified. So all of us have to be blessed. If all are blessed, they will always win.
People of the world had attempted to change the world with materials but material is only reducing human beings. We see the technologies, satellites, internet, and mobiles advancing…although it is good and useful; it is also passing its limit. Leaders have been very wrong. Politicians have extremely lost their direction. So unless we return to the One who shows us directions, we will be in complete darkness. If we return to God, what we Ethiopians have is enough to the world. We are not either with the West or with ourselves; we have become losers.
In short, I would like to say to Ethiopians from the youth to elders to stop being lured with little things for the sake of filling their belly and be firm on their faith.
Filling the gaps is crucial
By Anko Zuta
31-8-2005
The unstoppably disseminating TB/HIV co-infection has taken the life of thousands in Ethiopia . In the world over two billion people are estimated to live with tuberculosis where about 62-70 percent of Africa ’s population is infected by tuberculosis.
Ethiopia is one of the top 10 countries which are severely affected by TB standing seventh in the world and second in Africa next to Nigeria . Each year 300 out of 100,000 people are infected by TB in Ethiopia where in at this time around two million people are said to be contaminated.
As to Program member of the TB and Leprosy Control of the Ministry of Health Tuberculosis is a chronic infection caused by Micro-bacterial tuberculosis. It’s inclined by factors such as poverty, malnutrition, and crowded living and HIV infection.
The disease is especially becoming more associated and mounting with HIV infection.
As to the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MOH) 2003/2004 report, an estimated number of 1.5-1.6 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia. And with a national prevalence rate of 4.4% over 700,000 of them being adults, the problem is even ever-increasing each year.
Deaths due to AIDS also brought down life expectancy gains from 53 to 46 in 2001. If the current death trend continues the anticipated life expectancy gain to 59 years will be reduced to 50 years.
Eventually, an increasing number of people living with HIV are turning into AIDS patients. For instance 263,000 patients in Ethiopia are in need of Anti Retroviral Treatment (ART) however only 8 percent or 20,000 of them reach ART.
HIV infection is by far the greatest risk factor for developing active tuberculosis and is also the leading cause of death among people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Progress to control TB cases has been slow, with Directly Observed Treatment (PDT) coverage increasing by only six percent between 1998 and 2001 in Ethiopia. Though, in the 2001-2002 the coverage increased to 95 percent. This means that nearly all existing TB clinics now provide treatment under DOTS. However, detection of new TB cases stands at just 33 percent far short of the WHO 2005 target of 70%. This reflects that over 50% of Ethiopia ’s population doesn’t have access to primary health services and little infrastructure exists to expand DOTs. Unless there is rapid TB detection, DOTS and health services are extended, the rising rate of HIV/AIDS could cause the TB epidemic to spread out of control, as to the Open Society Institute report.
According to recent reports, in 2004 in Ethiopia 121,000 new TB patients were admitted. HIV is 30-50% present among TB patients where in the urban it is 40-60% and 20-30% prevalent in the rural. In the same way, the estimated number of TB deaths reached 60,938 with a 71% of new TB cases in adults (15-49 years), and 32% TB deaths that are HIV positive.
Though all these endeavours are being geared up by both the government and nongovernmental organizations to prevent and control both TB/HIV most of the society opts to head to the spiritual side than strictly follow medication. As soon as people find out they are HIV positive or are infected by TB they directly set off to their religious fathers and proceed as to what the religion advises.
Disease Prevention and Health Program Department member at the Ministry of Health says the breach to the spiritual option is mainly due to the expensive price of the drugs.
“Any patient can take normal diet in administering the drugs.” The Doctor states of the AIDS drugs.
He adds “if the population is well informed about the medication and that the drugs are available with the least price, the gaps will be plunged.”
“I don’t think that religion forbids taking drugs and we don’t oppose anyone going to the religious cult.” he says.
He noted that in the coming fiscal year more will be done in decreasing the price of drugs and more mobilization will be carried out, so that the predicament will be reduced
On the one hand, big efforts are being through by several bodies to tackle the spread of TB and HIV, while on the other hand the patients are roving to the opposite for the above stated factors.
The first basic cause for the of the gap is economic factor. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, over 50% of the Ethiopian population is below the poverty threshold and the other 25% is on the poverty line which totally makes 75%. This number of population can’t afford either the TB or AIDS drugs, so they go for the spiritual sect. In a condition where a single anti retroviral drug is sold over 200birr or 25 dollar it would be imprudent to expect any Ethiopian buy the drugs. The second is lack of proper diet. Though, doctors memo that any AIDS patient taking ARV can eat normal diet, for the recovery of the patient, its fact that it is much necessary to have a balanced diet for any patient as well for TB patients and which is impossible in our context. The third but not the least is the attitudinal background or typecast that exists towards medication and spirit/religion. It is that, when anyone gets sick, they are urged or suggested to go to the spiritual fathers than administer medication. Today, when this TB/HIV reached their max out, the number of people who stop the scientific medication and go to religious places also increased. All these three accompanied by other factors, make the gap even extensive and impossible to accomplish.
.Tewodros Mekbib is gives a testimony that he was cured from HIV/AIDS within 9 days of baptism in Entoto Mariam Church.
“I was born in Addis Ababa city district 12, Kebele 21 in home number 268. When I was very sick and bed ridden due to AIDS, a friend called Kibrom told me to go to the Entoto Mary Church .Because I was extremely sick and as there was no hope of revival in me, I decided to confess my sins and die in the church. However, after nine days off baptism, I got fully cured from the disease” he enlightens. He also shows his HIV test reports pre and after the baptism from a recognised medical Hospital.
Like Tewodros in the 2003/4 calendar over 800 and 1000 HIV and TB patients were healed respectively of the thousands of patients admitted to the Church, official documents of the church reveal.
The Pope of the ETO Church is advising that baptism and taking of the ART drugs go along; this is their way of filling the gaps.
There mayn't be a need of filling the gaps at all, though.
